Hat-trick hero Kyogo Furuhashi sets personal target after record-breaking nine-goal rout of Dundee United

Kyogo Furuhashi celebrated a memorable hat-trick during Celtic’s record-breaking 9-0 victory over Dundee United at Tannadice - then admitted his team mates need to MORE clinical in front of goal.

Ange Postecoglou’s side strolled to their biggest ever competitive away win in the club’s history as they humiliated the hosts to reclaim top spot in the Scottish Premiership table.

Hat-tricks from Furuhashi and Liel Abada helped to inflict United’s worst home defeat, with Jota, Josip Juanovic and Carl Starfelt also on the scoresheet as the Hoops netted nine goals for the first time in 12 years.

The result means Celtic will take a two-point lead into this weekend’s first Old Firm encounter of the season against Rangers.

Furuhashi, who has scored six times in five games so far this term, insists there is still room for improvement as he clutched one of two signed match balls.

The Japanese striker outlined his personal target and said: “I am happy with the hat-trick and I am happy with the team and the victory as we scored a lot of goals.

“Have I ever been involved in a score like that? No, never. It is the result of our football and what we have been working on.

“We’re happy with the result, but we still have a lot of things to do. We certainly had more opportunities to score, but we need to improve our finishing quality - althought we have the confidence from scoring nine goals in this game.

“My team-mates always provide me with good passes. The first aim would be 20 goals - and then I would like to reach 30 and more.

“Today was amazing. We could just express what we’ve been working on, so we want to keep working more and keep having good results.

“Recently I’ve just had one goal per game but I got three in this match. We just have to focus on each game and we would like to get a good result so that our fans can enjoy our games. We will keep working hard.”

Celtic raced into a 4-0 lead at half-time, courtesy of an inspired first-half hat-trick from the former Vissel Kobe star and Postecoglou was quick to highlight another element of Furuhashi’s game that was invaluable to his side’s attacking threat.

He admitted: “Kyogo was great and he’s been great all along in his time here at the club. He’s such an important part of what we do and he understands that.

“It’s not just his goals, it’s his overall workrate. The way he harrasses opponents is so important for us and it actually instigated a couple of counter-attacks for us.

“To be fair all of our strikers work incredibly hard and they also get their rewards in doing that.”

The Australian called for his side to remain focused ahead of the first instalment of the Old Firm derby on Saturday.

He told BBC Sportsound: “It’ll be a good game (against Rangers). They’re going really well, they’re a good side, so it will be a good quality football game.

“We’re looking forward to it but we’ve got Wednesday first, Ross County away in the cup.

“That’s not going to be an easy game so we’ve got to go there, give a good account of ourselves, and play our football, then build on that for the Rangers game.”